Monday, October 27, 2014

I've tried to read the Old Testament a few times. Always got bored silly somewhere in Kings or Chronicles. Never made it to Psalms.

Yet I notice that these chapters have pretty high Google ranks when you search for two-digit numbers.

I can see why. There's some uplifting stuff here:

5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
7 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of your house;
you give them drink from your river of delights.
9 For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.

10 Continue your love to those who know you,
your righteousness to the upright in heart.
11 May the foot of the proud not come against me,
nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.
12 See how the evildoers lie fallen—
thrown down, not able to rise!

Friday, October 17, 2014

Forty-six is a Wedderburn-Etherington number, an enneagonal number and a centered triangular number. It is the sum of the totient function for the first twelve integers. 46 is the largest even integer that can't be expressed as a sum of two abundant numbers.

46 is the 16th semiprime. 46 is the third semiprime with a semiprime aliquot sum. The aliquot sequence of 46 is (46,26,16,15,9,4,3,1,0).

Since it is possible to find sequences of 46 consecutive integers such that each inner member shares a factor with either the first or the last member, 46 is an Erdo"s–Woods number.

1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.[c]

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields[d] with fire.
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”

Thursday, October 16, 2014

In 1964, a tongue-in-cheek student project to determine whether the number 47 appeared more often in nature than other random numbers turned into a wholesale 47 hunt that has continued to this day. After all, you can’t deny the evidence:

Pomona College is located at Exit 47 of the San Bernardino Freeway.
There are 47 pipes in the top row of the Lyman Hall organ.
At the time of Pomona’s first graduating class in 1894, there were 47 students enrolled.
The Bible credits Jesus with 47 miracles.
The Declaration of Independence has 47 sentences.
There are 47 strings on a concert harp.
In the freshman class that entered Pomona College in the year 2000, there were 47 valedictorians.
The tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are located 47 degrees apart.

Even Hollywood has gotten in on the act. From art films to sci-fi to Will Ferrell vehicles, Pomona’s enduring in-joke has slipped past countless millions of movie-goers and tube-watchers in recent years. On TV’s Lost, 47 people survive the plane crash. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Steve Carell keeps a collection of 47 G.I. Joes. This summer’s blockbuster reboot of Star Trek alludes to 47 Klingon vessels being destroyed. There is even a much-viewed YouTube spoof of Jim Carrey’s The Number 23, substituting—you guessed it--the No. 47.

It goes as far back as the The Absent-minded Professor (1961). The Disney comedy features a basketball game filmed at Pomona’s old Renwick Gym. The final score? 47-46.

The recent spate of number-dropping started in the ’90s in earlier incarnations of Star Trek. Joe Menosky ’79 was a writer for The Next Generation (and later Voyager and Deep Space Nine) when he started slipping 47s into the shows. A producer eventually got wind and shut down the underground effort. But 47 keeps popping up in all sorts of shows.

If Menosky has moved on, how come our secret number keeps landing bit parts time and again? Is our 47 tradition at risk of overexposure? There’s no getting a straight answer out of Tinseltown on this sort of stuff, so—in a playful spirit—we turned to graphic novel artist Andrew Mitchell ’89 in our Fall 2009 issue of Pomona College Magazine for a creative take on the mystery (page 22 of the PDF). You can also read about the original mathematical hunt in 1964 in an article from our Fall 2000 issue.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

For the record, Sarah is SAHM. My mother was a SAHM. I've known other SAHMs. I don't have children, myself but I worked from home the last couple years of my marriage, so I can testify that this aspect of it is true.

I can really relate to this because the most valuable service I provide in my day job is not the actual task I perform, but rather it's that I'm there watching over things, and if anything goes wrong, I can immediately jump in and fix the problem. Problems never get out of hand for my employers, because I am always there. I provide security, safety, and peace of mind. Basically, I'm Batman.

And that immediate response aspect, with the consequent peace of mind, is one of the biggest blessings of having a spouse who does not work outside the home.

Were I to get married again. I would want to have those blessings in my home.